Re: marmaduke very poorly
Ok some good news and some bad news concerning Marmaduke.
He's been in for a scan and further tests and they are 99% sure it is HCM, but they've sent off for tests to confirm 100%. But his x-ray shows a big improvement from last week, and he is a little bit better. He's managed to get up on the sofa and to go upstairs which he hasn't done for a week, and the vet had to sedate him as he was quite difficult! And yesterday he did try and jump up on to the top of the fridge freezer, he failed and I had to lift him up!
They have reduced his flucmide to half a tablet twice a day and taken him off Nilio as this has caused an ulcer (he's had very dark poo's which is symtonmatic of this) so he's on half a tablet a day of Omeprazole for 10 days to help clear that up. They might put him on a different med or back on nilio but with some other drug at a later date. The main thing is to get him eating! So he's been given something to stimulate his appetite and some Hills A\D food to help encourage him to eat. They think a lot of the problem is his lack of appetite as well as being anemic due to the ulcer so once this is sorted he should perk up and be just about back to normal, he's managed to eat a little tuna and seemed quite interested in it, and I've been hand feeding him with the A\D on a teaspoon. They hope he should be well for maybe 9 to 12 months which I must admit is a lot longer than we thought! They had another BSH with HCM in that they had to put down at Xmas and he lived for 18 months having been diagnosed at about the same age as Duke is now.
So all in all not that bad we know he's on borrowed time but with luck it'll be a little bit more time that he can enjoy.
The vets have been great and we're very luck to have such a good vets practice. A couple of the vets (they're all really young!) are big BSH fan's and love seeing all our three and Marmaduke is always a bit of a hit with them!
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